For no reason, with no objective, with no popular support or national interest, at the whim of a president, we start another war.

And sit stunned at another misadventure begun in our name and underwritten with our blood. On the brink of insolvency, our military stretched dangerously thin, we start another fight.

Having capitulated on one, and become mired in another, we start yet a third.

Completely deaf to George Washingtons warning to avoid foreign entanglements.Over the weekend we attacked Libya.

It was supposed to be a UN operation, with us in support, on the far side of the horizon, with refueling and radar and logistical support. But when the rubble started to bounce it was us, from our ships and from the sky, pounding a country that had done us no harm, inflicted no hurt.

In the name of a no-fly zone, we attacked infantry and armor and artillery, in full fight against the Libyan military and police. Young Libyans conscripted into their military, fighting a civil war in defense of their government, fried in their tanks by our men and munitions.

And nobody knows why.

At least not in this country.

There has been no speech to the nation, no causus belli, no building of popular support or resolution of Congress, just the nod of a presidential head and we are again at war.

The peace candidate has become the war president.

And after 40 years, a Libyan dictator has suddenly become intolerable. For 20 years he was the worlds leading funder and bankroller of terrorism. In the 1980s he murdered American servicemen. Some 20 years ago he blew a civilian airliner out of the sky over Scotland.

There were a few sorties and a spanking from Reagan, but the world let him stay and we had no cause for war.

Now all of that has changed.

He has apparently done something worse.

As the wave of uprising spread across the Muslim world, people came out to protest in Libya. And the government suppressed them. Just as governments have done in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen. The protesters became rebels and mysteriously armed began attacking. The government fought back and got the upper hand and pushed back, reclaiming territory it had controlled for half a century.

And while Saudi tanks rolled into Bahrain the Security Counsel decided that Libyan tanks couldnt roll into Libya.

And the attack commenced.

We have gone to war with one more Muslim nation.

And in the inscrutable algebra of Obama-Clinton foreign policy, we have selected this one oppressive government  out of all the oppressive governments  and decided to topple it. Untold thousands and millions of black Africans have been uprooted or killed by governments and warring tribes and we have done nothing.

At the very time Libya was fighting armed rebels in a civil war, Ivory Coast was displacing and killing tens of thousands of its citizens. More people being treated worse in Ivory Coast, and yet we sent our armed forces into Libya.

If this is a humanitarian mission, then I dont fully grasp the meaning of the word humanitarian.

And I dont fully grasp the strategy at play. Tactically, it is clear the president has decided to decimate the Libyan military. But what is the strategic objective?

Has the White House forgotten the you broke it, you bought it principle of foreign meddling? Has it been so long since we took down Saddam Hussein that we have forgotten what can happen in the wake of the sacking of a dictator?

Have we not seen the chaotic mess that consumed Iraq? Do we think that any other fate can await a decapitated Libya? There is no organized opposition, no party or personality, just a people who have known nothing of self-government or political organization for almost half a century.

Has no one noticed that in the wake of the Muslim strongman, history has given us the rise of the Islamist? Do we really think that the organizations and leaders of militant Islam are going to hang back and do anything other than leap into the leadership vacuum? In Iran and Iraq, nearly a generation apart, it is the mullahs who have taken over. And it is likely the mullahs who will take over in Egypt and now, possibly, in Libya.

Does the president really think that the world is a safer and more stable place with both Egypt and Libya leaderless at the same time? Does he think that the worlds tenuous economy is bolstered by threats to Mediterranean commerce, African oil and Suez shipping?

And wasnt Libya the rogue nation that rehabilitated its status by renouncing terrorism and weapons of mass destruction? Havent the western nations been its tacit allies for most of the last decade?

Didnt Libya, wanting our favor, play nice with the world community?

And isnt there a possibility now that with this war we have unleashed another hornets nest of terrorism? If we are going to smash this new enemy with conventional tactics, isnt it natural to suspect that he will respond with unconventional tactics?

Does the president think that Libya has forgotten how to get bombs on airplanes? Does anyone remember that it was Libya that figured out how to wreak most of the carnage that ripped Northern Ireland for years on end? If the Libyan dictator is a psychotic who doesnt care for the lives of his own civilians, what regard do you think he has for the lives of our civilians?

And what regard do you think our president has for the will and wishes of our people? There is no groundswell of national anger against Libya, there has been no effort by the administration to either gauge or guide public sentiment. He consulted foreign heads of state, but he did not consult Americans  either on Main Street or in the Capitol.

The people have not been consulted, the Congress has not voted, the president has just acted.

And he has taken us to war.

And like his previous effort in Afghanistan, there is no objective, there is no end game, there is just killing.

Barack Obama rose to prominence as a critic of George W. Bushs war against Iraq. Unfortunately, he seems to remember none of the points he made then.

Good article on libya!
btw. if you look around at the european message boards it´s exactly the same.
Most people are just asking why the hell do “we” have started this?
We just started a war and NOBODY knows why?

Actually, the title should read, “Obama Starts a War.” To say “Start Another War” implies we started the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, when in fact those wars were started against us when the terrorists hit the towers! Let's think about how we say things! Words have meaning!

The sad thing is that plenty of Republicans are supporting him. I just saw an interview with John McAmnesty saying that the US needs to do more, including supplying the rebels, and ole John is on the Armed Services committee.

I will admit that I supported the Iraqi invasion in 2003, but I've since changed my mind, partly because I have two children in the military, but mainly because these kinds of wars are damaging our national security interests and wearing our military down and costing the taxpayer. All of the resources we used on Iraq could have been used in Afghanistan, and should have been. We're coming up on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden is laughing at us.

This administration is not about American interests; they are about destroying this country. It is intentional.

And it is not only Obama, but also the US Senators. US Senators are elected to serve the state’s interests, but in fact, once they get in to office and their 6-year terms, they represent the federal government’s interests to the states. They impose the will of the Federal government against the will of the people. They are the ones who are really answerable to no one. They are the ones who have the power to stop Obama but choose not to. The US Senators, and the Federal government are whose interest must be being served by what Obama is doing.

25
posted on 03/22/2011 5:36:03 AM PDT
by antonia
(A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. - Edward R. Murrow)

U.S. President Barack Obama leads a briefing on the current situation in Libya, with National Security Advisor Tom Donilon (L) aboard Air Force One, during a secure conference call on the flight from Brazil, to Santiago, Chile, in this handout photograph taken and released on March 21, 2011. REUTERS/Official White House Photo by Pet Souza/ Handout

I believe Reagan retaliated for this already. Listen I know Kadafi (sp) should have been assassinated years ago but Obama is not bombing because of Lockerbie. He could care less about dead Americans. He is doing this to help his friends Al Queda.

Yes and yes again. To al-Qaeda, and according to Sharia law, Quaddafi is a perverse joke and an apostate. To al-Qaeda, he is a Muslim who has disgraced himself by capitulating to western governments, and by compensating the families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. Only al-Qaeda would have the street knowledge to fight against Quaddafi in the manner these people are doing. Does anyone really believe the Libyan people, with coaching, have become skilled in counter-terrorism and armed revolt and can, when given a signal, just walk out of their homes and bomb the government's tanks? That's giving the CIA entirely too much credit. No, Obama is knowingly supporting entrenched Islamic fundamentalism, using American dollars and the American military. It truly amazes me that after all the damage he has done to the interests of the U.S. and its allies, this man, like the Energizer rabbit, just continues to be able to beat faster and faster on that drum of his.

Reagan did not ‘retaliate’ for Lockerbie PanAm 103.
You are thinking of the Berlin Disco bombing.
When PanAm 103 was blown to smithereens with 270 people killed, 11 on the ground, Reagan only had a month left in office. The investigation would take much longer than that to determine the cause and the blame.
The bastards have never been punished for this atrocity.
I can still see in my mind the awful scene of a mother coming into the NY airport to pick up her daughter for Christmas and then suddenly finding out on camera, live, that the plane had gone down. I will never forget that as long as I live.....................

37
posted on 03/22/2011 6:45:19 AM PDT
by Red Badger
(How can anyone look at the situation in Libya and be for gun control is beyond stupid. It's suicide.)

The sad thing is that plenty of Republicans are supporting him. I just saw an interview with John McAmnesty saying that the US needs to do more, including supplying the rebels, and ole John is on the Armed Services committee.

Good, you remember it. You should. But we've had four presidents since Reagan and before 0bama and how many Congresses? and none of them has had any interest in revenge on Qaddafi for Lockerbie. And 0bama has said nothing about Lockerbie. In fact we know that he approved, behind the scenes, the release of the Lockerbie bomber from Scotland. Amd he has said that Qaddafi is not a target.

The POTUS has just violated the Constitution and the War Powers Act which puts us smack into a military junta standing as a nation. You might worry a little more about that than your lust for revenge.

I believe the main reason we got into this mess was to help Europe keep Libyan oil flowing to them. So what’s in it for us, or rather, what’s in it for 0bama and his minions? That’s the $64,000 question. This is a REAL Blood for Oil war imo, not the phoney charge they hung on Bush’s neck.

State Legislatures, who were expert in the state's business, and who kept day to day tabs on the state's representatives to the Federal government, were the one's who the founding fathers had elect the Senators. This relationship protected the state's interests against the Federal government's interests.

The 17th amendment did away with that working relationship and made 'the people' responsible for keeping tabs on the federal reps also. (But it did not change the length of the senator's terms. Who can keep track of what these guys are doing for 6 years?)

This amendment has resulted in, as the framers predicted, a national government with influence, power and control unchecked by any political mechanism.

The original U.S. Constitution gave state governments a strong voice in the national government by requiring them to select U.S. Senators - to serve much like ambassadors today at the United Nations - and thus created the U.S. Congress to be a political (not judicial) venue for the competition between state government interests and national government interests.

Consider that those in state government claim a responsibility to address questions in the areas of taxation, education, employment, disaster relief, public safety, transportation, health care, marriage, and property rights, to name but a few. Yet all of those issues, and far more, are now primarily mandated, regulated, or directed out of Washington, DC, far away from the people being impacted by those policies. While the state governments bear much of the responsibility for their citizens, they have only secondary authority to do anything about the issues they face. When federal courts decline, as they frequently do, to interpret the 10th Amendment as protecting the sovereignty of states, without a voice in the U.S. Senate the states have no recourse. Repealing the 17th would address this deficiency.

A good president would do all of the above.
We did send the army into Mexico to get Pancho Villa.
We did send the military into Panama after Craterface.
We do have the means to protect our borders, we just dont have any leaders with the necessary genitalia to actually do it.
We apparently didnt have any concrete evidence against Qadafi until one of his former ambassadors spilled the beans. That alone should have given us enough reason to go into Libya to get him. Murder of 270 people is a crime without expiration date.......

50
posted on 03/22/2011 3:30:56 PM PDT
by Red Badger
(How can anyone look at the situation in Libya and be for gun control is beyond stupid. It's suicide.)

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